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Skilling Up for Powerdown Course Notes

Welcome to **Skilling Up for Powerdown** your 10 week exploration of life in Totnes beyond oil. Over the next ten weeks we will explore a wide range of subjects, and this webpage will offer an extensive resource for further reading and research. It will also feature the results of some of the group brainstorms you will have.

It will be updated every week a few days before the class, so try and get into the habit of checking it each week. I hope you enjoy both it and the course, and if you come across something you feel should be included, do feel free to email it to me for inclusion.

As a reminder, the recommended course book is Patrick Whitefield’s **Earth Care Manual**, published by Permanent Publications. It is the most thorough book on permaculture in temperate countries. You can buy it here.

You can see the Powerpoint presentation I gave during the session here

You’ll find the very good article I referred to about the recent Gulf of Mexico ‘discovery’ here.
An excellent recent talk by Richard Heinberg is available here as a sound file you can listen to. You might also enjoy a recent interview I did with Richard while he was in Totnes recently, Part One looked at peak oil and Part Two focused more on solutions.

We also discussed the concept of resilience. Here is a short film of me talking in more depth about it…

Here are the ideas you generated about the Challenges and Opportunities of Peak Oil and Climate Change (very kindly typed up by Sarah)

**CHALLENGES**

Getting more people involved
Fear of change
Unwillingness to make sacrifices
How to remain positive in the face of tremendous change / challenge?
How to trigger consciousness / awareness in the public?
Working together, cooperating with each other, conflict resolution
Changing habits and lifestyles
How to turn ideas into reality, thoughts into actions
How to keep momentum

Current lack of skills
What to do with / how to adapt existing infrastructure – sewage, transport system, food supply?
Developing better public transport, and new ways of transporting people and goods
How to overcome bureaucracy, especially in the short-term

Healthcare system based on denial of mortality, fear of death, treatment of symptoms rather than causes, etc
Many medicines made with petrochemicals – alternatives?
Care of the elderly

Food – can we grow enough? Variety and seasonality?
Energy – most homes currently dependent on oil/gas; schools and hospitals? What are the alternatives?
Building – what materials can be used? How to do it? Without machinery?
Local economy – reliant on tourism; dependent on oil; need to rebuild

**OPPORTUNITIES**

Create community and mutual support
Creating support systems, using traditional / tribal models?
Reconnect within local community, and with other local communities
Local entertainment and community activities
Chance to combine traditional knowledge, methods & wisdom with modern knowledge
Rebalance values

Increase local skills base – learn new skills and re-learn old skills
Create community garden – also with a social function, a place for families to gather
Allotments – to grow food, reduce food miles, create a permaculture system
Rebuild local agriculture
Shop local and sustain locally
Close Morrisons!
Energy saving – solar panels, light bulbs, more awareness of simple things
Providing local energy
Closing of Dairy Crest – prime site
Less dependent on cars
Simpler, more sustainable lifestyles
Use local materials, appreciation of native resources
Less waste

Improve health – less packaged/processed food, more exercise
Healthier not only physically, also mentally and emotionally
Change approach to healthcare – more home births, more personal responsibility for health, etc
Ecological funerals
Reconnecting with the Earth, remembering that we are part of a web of reciprocal living systems
Remembering our responsibility to the Earth; accountability

Holmgren, D. (2004) *Permaculture- principles and pathways beyond sustainability*. Holmgren Design Press. You can read my review of this book here.
Whitefield, P. (2005) *The Earth Care Manual*. Permanent Publications. You can see my review here.
Whitefield, P. (2000) *Permaculture in a Nutshell*. Permanent Publications. A good light introduction.
Also highly recommended is a subscription to the Permaculture Magazine.

An excellent place to start is the following interview with David Holmgren which sets out very clearly the links between permaculture and peak oil, and the concept of energy descent…

There is also a great interview with David Holmgren here, and recent talks by him here and here.

You can hear in interview with Bill Mollison here. A useful overview of permaculture can be found on Wikipedia. A good article by David Holmgren looking at the principles we explored can be found on his site, click on ‘Writings’ and then the fourth section down, ‘Essence of Permaculture’.

The **Principles of Permaculture** that we will be covering on this course are;

**For Next Week.** Have a look at Caroline Lucas’ new report, Fuelling a Food Crisis which you can read online. If nothing else, just read the introduction, but if you can read more you will find it very useful.

This is part one of Bill Mollison’s classic film **In Grave Danger of Falling Food**, well worth watching, the first thing I saw about permaculture.

* 21% of total UK energy use is in food supply.
* Supplying the food to each UK household requires 10 barrels of crude oil each year.
* One-third of UK food is imported – one of the lowest self-sufficiency ratios in the EU
* Between 1988 and 2002 imports increased by 38%
* Imports of vegetables have doubled, of fruits have tripled.
* 50% of veg and 95% of fruit in the UK is imported.
* Over half of food imported into the UK in 2002 was indigenous produce.

>“In 2004 the UK imported 17.2 million kilos of chocolate-covered waffles and wafers and exported 17.6 million kilos: we imported 10.2 million kilos of milk and cream by weight, from France and exported 9.9 million. The figures for the same trade with Germany were 15.5 million kilos and 17.2 million. Germany sent us 1.5 million kilos of potatoes and we sent them, yes, 1.5 million kilos of potatoes. We imported 43,000 scarves from Canada and exported 39,000. Drink is swilling around the international markets. The UK imported £310 million worth of beer in 2004 and exported £313 million worth. For spirits the figures were £344 million and £463 respectively”?.
New Economics Foundation. ‘The UK Interdependence Report’ (2006).

Whitefield, P. (2005) *The Earth Care Manual*. Permanent Publications. By now this should be your bible! You can see my review here.
Fern, K. (1997) *Plants for a Future: Edible and Useful Plants for a Healthier World.* Permanent Publications. Indispensible guide to unusual plants and their possibilities.
Jeavons, J. (2005) *How to grow more vegetables than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine.* Ten Speed Press. The guide to growing very high yields of food very intensively. A classic and rightly so.
Whitefield, P. (1996) *How to Make a Forest Garden.* Permanent Publications. Does everything it says on the tin really.
Larkcom, J. (1998) *Grow Your Own.* Frances Lincoln. One of the better ‘everything a gardener needs to know’ books. Fits in a (large) pocket.
Guerra, M. (2005) *The Edible Container Garden: Fresh Food from Tiny Spaces.* Gaia Books. An excellent permaculture guide to an abundant back yard.
Hickmott, S. (2003) *Growing Unusual Vegetables: weird and wonderful vegetables and how to grow them* Ecologic Books. A valuable guide to some of the more unusual plants that might grace a permaculture garden. You can read my review of this book here
Pullen, M. (2004) *Valuable Vegetables: Growing for Pleasure and Profit.* Ecologic Books. A very honest and practical guide to running a market garden. You can read my review of this here
Bartholemew, M. (2006) *All New Square Foot Gardening: Grow More in Less Space!* Cool Springs Press. A simple approach for maximum output from very small spaces.

Also;
Fukuoka, M. The One Straw Revolution. Hard to find but available here
Stout, R. (1976) *The No Work Garden Book.* White Lion Publishers. Out of print but findable second hand.

Here is a review I wrote a while ago giving a round up of all the different books in print on growing food in small spaces.

* **Use materials so they can be reused**
Soft mortars, screws, no glues

* **Use materials for a healthy internal environment**

**Recommended Reading.**

Evans, I, Smith, M & Smiley, L. (2002) *Hand Sculpted House – a practical and philosophical guide to building a cob cottage.* Chelsea Green. Quite simply the best book on natural building, and on the philosophy of ‘small is beautiful’ as applied to houses.
Alexander, C. et.al. (1977) *A Pattern Language.* Oxford University Press. An essential book on design, identifying a number of subtle ‘patterns’ that make buildings either work or not work. A seminal piece of work, one of few books worthy of being called genius.
Magwood, C & Mack, P. (2000) *Straw Bale Building – how to plan, design and build with straw.* New Society Publishing. Probably the best strawbale building book around.
Clifton-Taylor, A. (1987) *The Pattern of English Building (4th edition).* Faber and Faber. An amazing book on the vernacular building traditions of the UK. A scholarly yet readable guide to all the elements (stone, timber, cob etc) that made up our architectural heritage.
Day, C. (2003) *Consensus Design – socially inclusive process.* Architectural Press. A wonderful book which offers an entirely new way of approaching building design, by starting with a detailed reading of the landscape and assessing what the land would ‘want’ to be built. Compassionate architecture at its finest.
Roy, R. (2003) *Cordwood Building – state of the art.* New Society Publishing. A very thorough guide to cordwood building.
Borer, P & Harris, C. (2000) *The Whole House Book.* CAT Publications. One of the best overview ‘what is green building’ books.
Kennedy, J., Smith, M. and Wanek, C. eds. (2002). *The Art of Natural Building: Design, Construction, Resources*. Gabriola Island, BC. New Society Publishers. A very good overview of natural building approaches.
Woolley, T. (2006) *Natural Building: A Guide to Materials and Techniques.* The Crowood Press. A new and very thorough overview of natural building, in a more UK/Ireland context than many of the other books.

There is a nice article about cob here and a good overview of the Passive House concept here. Kevin McCabe is at www.buildsomethingbeautiful.com.

33% gets flushed down the loo, 25% is used washing ourselves, 18% is spent on drinking and in preparing food, 12.5% is used in our laundry, 8.5% is used when we do the dishes, and 3% is used to wash the car and water our extensive vegetable gardens!

1. **The Area of the Roof.** Take this as being the floor area of the house.
2. **The Runoff Co-efficient.** This allows for loss of rainwater, from evaporation or from overflows before it reaches the tanks. For pitched roofs you can have a figure of 0.7, flatter roofs are lower, at 0.5.
3. **The Efficiency of the Filter.** These filter out leaves and dirt, and lose a small amount of water. Depending on the filter, insert a figure of 0.8 or 0.9.
4. **Annual Rainfall.** For Totnes, the closest figure I can find is around 1000mm per year.

There is also a rather sweet video made by a community in London about how to build compost bins for a community composting scheme. Also, South West Water offer cheap compost bins and rainwater barrels…. you can find out more at the SWW website. Finally, you may enjoy this compost toilet-related film made on the recent TTT video making course.

The Energy Savings Trust. Offer independent advice and information about renewable energy options, and the availability of grants.Energy Future . Aims to clear away the confusion and dispel the myths and misconceptions about topics such as climate change and DIY energy.

Here is the mindmap we used during the session…

**Recommended Reading.**

Clift, J. & Cuthbert, A. (2006) *Energy: use less – save more.* Green Books. Just published, a pocket sized but very informative guide to energy saving.
Mobbs, P. (2005) *Energy Beyond Oil*. Matador Books. What are the energy options for the UK in the light of peak oil? One of the best books on the subject.
Casten, T.R. & Downes, B (2005) *Critical Thinking About Energy – The Case for Decentralized Generation of Electricity* – January 2005.
Simms, A., Kjell, P & Woodward, D. (2005) Mirage and Oasis – energy choices in an age of global warming New Economics Foundation, London.
Greenpeace. (2005) Decentralising Power – an energy revolution for the 21st century. A very thorough report on decentralised energy systems.

You can read about Jean Pain composting here and here. Here is a link to an article about the excellent Ballytobin Anaerobic digestor in Ireland. You can watch an excellent film produced by Greenpeace about decentralised energy systems here. Some useful stuff about smallscale alcohol production can be found here. A recent article in the Guardian gave some useful information on the financial payback of various renewable options. You can buy the reflective panels that go behind radiators here. A useful reference on woodchips is here, a good place to start with on the subject.

Your first port of call for advice and for information about grants and installers is the Devon Energy Efficiency Advice Centre in Plymouth who can be phoned on 0800 512 012. They offer a very good service. There is also a very good article on where the real energy savings are to be made in the house, and it may not necessarily be leaving things on standby!!

Here is a list of links that Sophie recommends. [[http://www.joannamacy.net]] One of the foremost activists, thinkers and teachers in what she calls “The Great Turning”.The Great Turning Times. Here is a very good, concise film of Joanna teaching…

Chris Johnstone’s site for his e-newsletter and events listing relating to Transition / the Great Turning.The Pachamama Alliance The pachamama alliance brings together the Achuar indigenous people of Ecuador with people from the US to “change the dream of the north”. It offers information, resources, workshops and more.Be The Change From the Gandhi quote “Be the change you want to see”. Organises an annual conference, works in business.

Joanna Macy & Molly Young Brown. *Coming Back To Life Practices To Reconnect Our Lives, Our World* New Society Publishers For The First Three Chapters.
Theodore Roszak (Ed) *Ecopsychology* Sierra Club Books.
David Abram *The Spell Of The Sensuous*
Bill Plotkin *Soulcraft Crossing The Mysteries Of Nature And Psyche.*

First place to start is this film, “Money as Debt”, which is a good overview of how the money system works. You will find the links to the next part following on after it. It is well worth watching the full 47 minutes.

Then it is time to start looking some of the work of those starting to explore solutions.

Dear All, as you will hopefully have seen from my email, I unfortunately have to postpone next week’s class, the final one on the course, due to the death of a very dear friend, which means I will be away until Tuesday. So, same place, same time, the following Monday. Apologies, and see you there…
Rob

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